mlroseplant

In our jurisdiction, basements do not count for taxation purposes unless they are finished, and mine certainly is not. Everything is bare brick and wood and ductwork. There is no means of egress except for the steep, narrow staircase that got you down there in the first place. At least it has a concrete floor. How come we use the word "egress" pretty commonly, but "ingress" rather infrequently?

Looks great, but a little weird with that sack over your head. 😜

I totally get saving the stilettos for special occasions, as it requires a lot more attention to wear them out in the real world, and the heel tips wear out quickly. I am curious, however, how broad of a heel do you guys like to wear on a daily basis, and why? I ought to do some experiments to find out at what point a broad heel actually provides stability, and at what point a broad heel provides security in the sense that one can start to ignore cracks/holes in the pavement. Without actually measuring, my gut feeling is that although not technically a block heel, my personal comfort level starts at about 3/4", or 2 cm. This still allows the fluidity associated with a stiletto without worrying about every single surface one might encounter.

I know I have influenced several women to be wistful about wearing heels, but as I said, I have a zero percent long term success rate, with the possible exception of one, in the instant case. I know you have a love of Jessica Simpson heels, but I've never had any luck with them, along with Micheal frickin' Kors, a beloved figure amongst my ever-shrinking circle of heel loving friends.

If there is a distinction in the U.S., I'm sure that it's about the same as you describe. I call what is the mostly-below-grade floor of my house a "basement," but it could very well be called a "cellar," according to your definition. The only reason it is now somewhat habitable is because we switched from coal heat to gas heat a long time ago. The average height of this couple of rooms, which do not encompass the entirety of the foundation of the house (we call this a "half basement") is 6'8", or barely over 2 m. The lowest headbanger, not including the stairway to get down there, is about 6'4", or 193 cm. So forget all you tall guys! The room contains all of the utilities, including the laundry facilities, and I prefer it that way. It also contains my entire shoe collection, most of my wardrobe, and my ironing facilities. It's also the location of the formerly famous plumbing drain pipes that used to be a regular part of my photographic contributions to this site. It is also where my son and I have our music room. Mama banished us to this place, as she can shut the kitchen door and not hear us as much. Can't fit the piano down there, though.

After four days in a row of practice, I believe I am back to normal. The super cold weather has left us, at least for now, and I can stand to walk outside again. It may be that I will feel like taking some pictures again soon. It's kind of too bad I missed the last couple of weeks. I wore knee high boots to church two weeks in a row!

Thanks for the illustration. It is obvious that the word means something different here vs. there, although some of the visual features are similar. Now, to keep the subject going, what is the difference between a cellar and a basement? At least in the Midwest U.S., they are synonyms. Well, sort of. If you live on the farm, you call it a cellar. If you live in town, you call it a basement. Most houses in the Midwest have basements of some sort, and they've only gotten bigger and deeper in my lifetime, and people like to actually finish them and use them as living space. Obviously, places like Florida do not have basements, as the water table is way too high for that.

I just noticed in my original post that I wrote "communion," when I actually meant "offertory." Don't know if anyone caught that, sorry. I have no doubt that in a small way, I am an influencer. Not that it does a whole lot of good in this fashion day and age. I know I have inspired a number of girls and women to try heels over the years, but thus far I have a zero percent success rate, except perhaps with Amber. We shall see. I know very well that I have something to do with her continued interest in heels. What I do not understand is why she bothers to wear heels in the first place, as she always covers them up with boot cut pants of some sort. She has done this since her 20s. She's kind of short, but she ain't that short. Besides, it's not like she wears heels every day. It's a Sunday only kind of thing.

I don't think there is any hard and fast rule about such things. I have come to the conclusion that some people can pull certain outfits off, and others can't. The problem is, there's no real way to tell in advance what it will be. Several years ago, we had a choir director from Korea who used to wear very short skirts and dresses to church all the time. She could pull that off. My wife would look ridiculous in the same outfit. Hopefully it would be only ridiculous, and not vulgar.

I was playing in church yesterday, and I noticed that one of the ushers who brings the plate up to the altar after communion, was wearing heels. This is the same 40-ish woman who not a month ago proclaimed that she couldn't wear heels anymore, her knees just wouldn't take it. Normally, she wears 2.5 inch block heeled booties, and I figured that was the case yesterday. It's just that I couldn't really tell because she was wearing boot cut jeans the hem of which was about 1/2 inch off the floor. She has worn that style so long that it's come back into style. After the service, I happened to run into her, and I said simply, "OK Amber, let's see what you got." I was not misunderstood. That in itself is humorous. She knew exactly what I meant, lifted up her foot, and pulled back her pant leg. I was very surprised to see these little wedge booties that were a good 3.5 inches high, single-sole. After a brief discussion, as there were other people around, she admitted that they're fairly new, meaning that the jury is still out on whether she is done with heels or not.

There may be something to that, and let's hope there is!

To my knowledge, we just use the term "Victorian" to describe a style of house, as CrushedVamp said above. However, it just so happens that the vast majority of the houses built in that style were built before 1900. My house is of unknown vintage, but was undoubtedly built before 1900, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as "Victorian." It's a crappy little house with small rooms and not a great deal of style. It is the oldest house in our neighborhood, and legend has it that it was once a log cabin. I haven't found any evidence of this, and if there was a log cabin on this lot, it must have been torn down when this house was built. When it comes to my ex-house, I would have and did describe as "Edwardian," but nobody around here knows what the hell I'm talking about.

I don't know what causes us to be different in these regards, and I wonder if some of it is psychology. I believe I've said before that although my legs get cold, my feet do not. OK, lately when it's been below zero F, yes, they get cold eventually, but in general, say 40ºF--5º C, I can be wearing long johns and sandals and be fine.

I try to keep my collection at around 100. Even then, there are shoes that I don't wear often--once a year or less. Of course, if I were able to wear heels every day, that might change the equation somewhat. Kind of like the wealth inequality in the world, half a dozen of my shoes get 80% of the wear.

Interestingly enough, there has in fact been a change in our heating situation because I have the dining room ceiling torn up right now (125 year old plaster started falling down), and this causes the furnace to run more than normal because the thermostat is in that room. As a result, the upstairs bedrooms are hotter than normal, and we're not collectively smart enough to remember to turn the thermostat down before the last one goes to bed. I don't think anyone would ever accuse me of looking like Paul Bunyan, suspenders or not. Still, a solution must be found eventually.

I wear leggings from October to April these days. I can't take the cold like I used to, especially on my legs. I don't understand how these kids can wear shorts in the winter. I'd be much more likely to be able to do the opposite--short sleeve shirt with long pants (and probably leggings underneath that). It's a good thing I'm not a Korean girl. I don't know how they do it. Here's a real-life example, somebody I know personally, i.e., not online. I know she's wearing tights, but tights do not equal actual warm pants. I would freeze to death!

I had some Chelsea boots with stiletto heels once, but they were too big, so I finally let them go. You're welcome. 😜

We have survived yet another cold snap, and I've got to get back to my walking. It's been almost a week, and you know how I mentioned somewhere back there that you can't really afford to take more than a day or two off? Oh, yeah. Four inch heels definitely feel like four inch heels again.

Thanks @bluejay, for providing us the update. It just so happens that just the other day, I was going through some of my "shoe notes," and I wrote down at some point, "Used the Steve method this time." What I must have meant was shoe stretching, to make narrow shoes a little bit more comfortable. Steve had suggested wearing the too-narrow shoes in the shower, and then wearing them until they were dry.

There used to be a guy on here who had a business which specialized in selling hosiery for men. He hasn't been on here since Pandemic times, but they do make such things as tights designed for men. Of course, they wouldn't fit me, since I'm only half a man.

Don't you know I had a dream last night, that I wore suede pumps out in the snow and ruined them. It was a truly frightful experience. I swear I could feel the slushy ice all over my shoes, and they were actually starting to change color. But when I woke up, oh my dream, it was gone.

I have always gone on the shorter side of things simply because my legs are so short. I have recently had reason to review a couple of videos of me in longer shorts, as in what men traditionally wear, and they are not flattering on me. To be fair, this predated my heeling days, and also predated my days of training for triathlon, so perhaps my legs really did look that bad, but the situation was certainly not helped by the style of clothing.

I suppose it is wise to consider that silence doesn't necessarily equal tacit approval. The main point I was trying to make is that the internet allows people to be their worst selves, evidently without guilt. This refresher course in human fecal matter has definitely swayed my personal needle toward not making a "How to Walk in High Heels" video. Who needs that kind of abuse?

I failed to look at the comments section, but I suppose it's just as well. I was checking my social media feed the other day, and this random guy popped up. I scratched my head and said, "Wait a minute! That's that Mark What's His Face from Germany, innit?" Sure enough, it was Mark Bryan from Germany, and there was an article you could click on, which I didn't do, but I started reading through the comments. Hoo boy! Two thirds of them were pretty brutal, and 90% of those were pretty ignorant. To be fair, I'm not a huge fan, he lost me completely when he did that interview a couple years back, and for some strange reason started taking off all his clothes. Sorry, that's way too weird for me. I only wonder what my own comments section would be like, were it to exist. It's very easy to gang up on someone you don't even know, I really feel that my own success and acceptance here is because it's a lot more difficult to gang up on somebody you do know and have real, personal interaction with. Every once in a while, I get delusional and make a comment on somebody's video or post. This time, I resisted the temptation, because I believe that once you get more than about 50-100 comments on a post, even if the conversation is civil and semi-intellectual, who goes through and reads all that crap anyway? I think it would be easier to be heard shouting on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange than to be heard in the comments section of any popular post.

And then, there is social media. I am familiar with a certain gal who portrays herself as a young, self-made millionaire. She is always in high heels, except for sports activities. I do not know this young woman personally, but I know people who do. According to those in the know, it's all an act. She doesn't really dress like that every day. For some reason, I seem to have attracted this young lady's attention, because she sent me a private message and requested that I send her some pictures of my shoe collection, as she likes my style. As long as the conversation never turns into me investing in Vietnamese stocks, I'm cool with that. My point is, for us, it's not an act. We really do dress like that every day. I think people appreciate that.